Clash In Reps As Opposition Walk Out Of Plenary Over Bill To Raise Ways And Means
There was chaos at the house of representatives on Wednesday over a bill seeking to raise the ways and means cash advances from five percent to 10 percent.
Opposition parties staged a walk out during plenary after an amendment by Kingsley Chinda, the minority leader, that the ways and means be reduced to two percent was rejected.
The existing law provides that the advance by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) must not exceed five percent of the previous year’s revenue of the federal government.
Chinda moved the amendment during the consideration of the report on the bill at the committee of the whole, saying this will enhance transparency in federal government spending.
The report proposed raising the ways and means advances from the existing five percent to 15 percent.
James Faleka, chairman of the committee on finance, opposed Chinda’s amendment, urging the house not to go below the five percent in the act.
Ibrahim Isiaka, a lawmaker from Ogun state, supported Faleke’s position, proposing that it should be raised from five percent to 10 percent.
Idris Wase, a former deputy speaker, moved a motion for an amendment that 10 percent should be maintained.
When Benjamin Kalu, the deputy speaker and presiding officer, called for a voice vote on Wase’s amendment motion, the “nays” were louder than the “ayes,” but he ruled in favour of the “ayes.”
This provoked the lawmakers, who loudly expressed their dissent with a repeated “no”.
At this point, the opposition lawmaker led by Chinda, walked out of plenary.
Subsequently, the report was adopted and passed for third reading.
THE WAYS AND MEANS
Ways and means is a loan facility through which the CBN finances the federal government’s budget shortfalls.
The CBN law limits advances under ways and means to five percent of the previous year’s revenue, but this has been observed in breach over the years.
On May 23, 2023, the senate approved the sum of N22.7 trillion ways and means loan, thereby securitising the debt following a request by former President Muhammadu Buhari on December 28, 2022, asking the lawmakers to do so.
In January 2023, former President Muhammadu Buhari told the senate it would cost the federal government about N1.8 trillion in interest if the national assembly failed to approve the N22.7 trillion in extra-budgetary spending.
One year later, Godwin Emefiele, the former governor of CBN, was linked to a “fraud” case involving the apex bank’s loan on December 22, 2023.
A report by a panel investigating CBN and related entities — led by Jim Obazee, a special investigator — had said Emefiele and Zainab Ahmed, former finance minister, had jointly signed a statement advising Buhari to restructure the ways and means of N23.71 trillion despite presenting “a different figure to the National Assembly on the same date”.
